The Fall of Skywalker: A Star Wars Story

Two days ago, I have commented in this thread that I will be merging the prequels into a 3-in-1 edit (yeah, I know that this has been done many times). The edit will be called “The Fall of Skywalker: A Star Wars Story”, in a nod to The Rise of Skywalker, and while I plan on using other edits by Hal 9000 and IlFanEditore, I also plan on making some of my own changes.

Here are some of the main ideas I have for the edit:

The Phantom Menace is mostly removed (except for the scene where Yoda gives Obi-Wan permission to train Anakin), and the edit will focus on mostly Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

An entirely new crawl, in which it mentions that Anakin is the son of Qui-Gon (who was Obi-Wan’s old master who was also secretly married to Shmi, and he wanted Obi-Wan to train his son as a Jedi at the time of his death). (YES, in this edit, Anakin is Qui-Gon’s son, no if’s, and’s, or but’s.)

No mention of the Chosen One. Not only is the whole “Chosen One” thing a big cliché, but it is partially responsible for the sequel trilogy undermining the accomplishments of the original trilogy.

Removing some awful dialogue, obviously.

Because I will be mostly removing The Phantom Menace from this edit, this means that I am removing Maul altogether, and that Jar Jar will just be a background character. This also means that Padmé is just a senator and not a queen.

Many edits will be borrowed from Hal 9000 and IlFanEditore.

If possible, the whole “Jedi aren’t allowed to have attachments” thing is removed.

Here is the list of changes I’ll be doing:

MY CHANGES

The movie begins with the current Walt Disney opening logo (to compensate with the fact that Lucasfilm is owned by Disney)

Replace the outdated Lucasfilm logo (in the 2015 re-release) with the current one, first seen in The Force Awakens

After “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”, the scene in The Phantom Menace where Yoda gives Obi-Wan permission to train Anakin plays

New opening crawl, which mentions that Qui-Gon wanted Obi-Wan to train his son, Anakin, at the time of his death.

Removed all mentions of the Chosen One

Removed some atrocious dialogue

On that subject, after Mace tells Palpatine that “the Senate will decide your fate”, we cut immediately to Palpatine standing up as he whips his saber out of his belt and tells Mace “it’s treason, then.”

Insert music from The Force Awakens when Palpatine is pleading Anakin to kill Dooku (it’s the same music that Hal 9000 and poppasketti used when trimming the heavy, direct hinting before Snoke’s death in their edits for The Last Jedi)

Save Yoda’s lightsaber for his duel with Sidious, and he’s a Force projection during the fight (the latter idea is not mine, it’s inspired by IlFanEditore). The idea is different, as Yoda is a “physical projection” (he can still clash sabers with Sidious and use the Force, but his projection cannot be killed).

Removed most of the dialogue in the “Anakin is set on fire” scene except for “I hate you!!”

After the final binary sunset scene, the film ends with Anakin’s full transformation as Vader (+additional shot from Rogue One in which Vader is seen in a Bacta tank as a robed figure comes in and bows), ending with the shot of the metallic bed moving as we see a close-up of Vader’s helmet (no traditional Star Wars end credits theme, and will instead use this track by Alan Silvestri but without the Avengers theme at the end)

HAL 9000’s CHANGES

Removed Captain Typho’s lines before the ship blows up.

Trimmed Corde’s death.

Added deleted scene where Padme addresses the Senate. This establishes some context for the political content of this film, as well as Padme’s post-Queen character.

Trimmed the scene in Palpatine’s office to remove unhelpful dialogue.

Anakin’s inappropriate compliments are trimmed in favor of making it a relatable awkward moment for him. It doesn’t give Padme pause.

In the interest of downplaying Obi-Wan and Anakin’s antagonism, their discussion about their roles in front of Padme is trimmed to get to the point.

Anakin does not talk to Jar Jar.

Removed Jango talking to Zam, to save his reveal for later and remove redundancy.

Added two lines of dialogue from the removed scene where Anakin and Padme meet with the Queen to the refugee transport scene

Anakin doesn’t mention attachment being forbidden. This on its own doesn’t change anything drastically, but it’s not necessary to define the universal ‘Jedi Way’ so narrowly.

Added deleted scene where Obi-Wan and Mace talk on the landing platform.

Used extended arrival scene on Naboo.

Added first deleted scene of Padme with her family, replacing conversation with the new Queen.

Removed Kaminoan prime minister listing numbers of clone units. It lessens the power of their reveal in a few scenes.

Boba Fett is not described as being a clone. He probably still is a clone, but the pacing is off when the movie pauses to talk about him when nobody asked.

No fireplace scene. Instead, we have a sunset kiss that is interrupted by a scene transition. Scene has been regraded by NeverarGreat.

Removed dialogue about the Jedi not being able to use the force due to the dark side clouding everything.

Lightly trimmed the fight in the rain.

Tightened up the chase through the rings of Geonosis. Removed childish Boba moments, and sped up the pacing.

Trimmed Cliegg Lars’ dialogue that goes over the top to characterize him as a good guy.

Threepio and Artoo stay on the ship and do not make their way into the battle.

Yoda does not say “Very good, very good” to the Clone. He’s not supposed to be ok with war.

Dooku is not mentioned until he arrives to confront the Jedi in RotS.

Obi-Wan never refers to R2 by name. It’s not much, but it’s a small way to gloss over the tension between the continuity of the PT and OT.

Trimmed dialogue and tightened up the action sequence leading up to the bridge fight, including removing R2 slapstick humor. (V6 goes further to remove R2 striking the super battle droid with electricity, thanks for Siliconmaster and Adam Burrows.)

Corrected two inaccurate lightsaber ignition sounds during the opening sequence. Obi-Wan and Anakin’s sabers must match their ANH and ESB sounds.

Removed as much silliness as possible during the fight on the bridge of the Invisible Hand.

Grievous says, “Time to abandon ship” as he breaks the hull and escapes.

Reinstated snippet in which Grievous mans the escape pod and launches, addressing an abrupt musical transition introduced in prior versions of the fan edit. Used dialogue from The Clone Wars to replace line that was moved to earlier.

Lightly trimmed dialogue during the crash landing on Coruscant.

Trimmed Anakin and Obi-Wan’s dialogue recounting past adventures we never get to see.

Removed Jar Jar’s one line in RotS.

In this version, we see Anakin’s political motivations for turning to the dark side and tensions with Padme before he develops concerns about her impending doom. He is only shown to have one nightmare about her, and the order of scenes implies it was planted by Palpatine.

Anakin never tells Padme about his nightmare, another conflict within him.

Replaced scene with Windu hearing that Obi-Wan has engaged Grievous with deleted scene "A Plot to Destroy the Jedi” earlier in the film. (V6 repositions this scene immediately prior to Anakin missing the briefing, up from right before Anakin’s appointment to the Council as in prior versions of this fan edit.)

Dialogue trimmed in most scenes, especially during Anakin’s appointment to the Jedi Council.

Borrowed audio work from MalàStrana to incorporate an eerie rendition of the Imperial March as Windu denies Anakin the rank of Master.

Reinstated the deleted scene in Bail Organa’s apartment, gently color correcting it to appear to be a bit later in the day, in order to give Padme something worthwhile to do in the film and contribute to a sense of tension between her and Anakin.

Moved Grievous’ arrival on Utupau to after Anakin and Padme’s tense political discussion.

Placed Anakin’s sole nightmare after this, with the opera scene right afterward.

During the opera scene, removed reference to midichlorians. Also removed Palpatine calling Anakin out on spying on him. It is more effective to let Anakin carry that tension inwardly only, and provide no relief.

Chewbacca’s onscreen appearances have been altered to either remove him or disguise him by recoloring his fur and adding alternate clothing. (Thanks to Poppasketti)

Reinstated the sunset meeting between the loyalists and Palpatine, further elaborating on the tension between Anakin and Padme.

Along with other dialogue trims, removed Obi-Wan telling the corduroy man to summon warriors.

Removed the first half of Grievous’ line, “It is a volcanic planet. You will be safe there.” Volcanic equals safe?

Removed the now redundant scene in the war room talking about a plot to destroy the Jedi.

Trimmed dialogue as Palpatine reveals his true nature to Anakin in order to slightly downplay Padme as Anakin’s only real motive for joining the dark side.

Removed Palpatine’s voiceover as Anakin waits in the Council room, talking about Padme again.

As Anakin enters the scene, Windu is already going to kill Palpatine, who defends himself with force lightning and sends Windu falling to his death. I made use of an idea from Kerr’s fan edit that L8wrtr also used to imply that the wrinkly face was Palpatine’s true appearance all along. Palpatine uses lightning only once instead of twice. He’s human-looking at the start, then the lights go out, and he has a monster face when they come back on. Trust me, it’s better than it sounds.

Anakin and Palpatine don’t mention Padme during the knighting of Vader scene. Other dialogue is trimmed a little for effectiveness. The idea is that saving Padme’s life is the spark that ignites a myriad of other factors for Anakin’s turn toward evil.

Removed the scene where Anakin ignites his saber on a roomful of children. By cutting this, Anakin’s slip toward depravity can be seen as a little more gradual.

Removed Yoda’s interactions with the Wookiees after Order 66.

Removed R2 popping out of Anakin’s fighter.

Removed Obi-Wan and Yoda’s fight to enter the Temple. The line of dialogue about everyone being preoccupied about the Senate session is good enough.

Removed dialogue about the “high ground” at the end of the duel.

Reinstaned deleted scene of Yoda arriving on Dagobah.

ILFANEDITORE’S CHANGES

Camera pans down, rather than up, after the crawl, to maintain continuity with the other films.

No Obi-Wan flying over Coruscant. Too over the top. The whole sequence is over the top. Now we just cut to Anakin and Obi Wan already being on the speeder car. We don’t need to know how they got it.

With a different cut, it looks like Anakin is always knowing where the BH is going, and when he jumps off the car, the BH is just beneath them. Slightly more believable.

Anakin doesn’t lose his lightsaber (to remove the ridiculous Obi-Wan reaching it). Reversed the shot of Ani igniting it, so it looks like he turned it off.

Anakin and Padme speaking in open field placed before their first kiss scene. Their relationship should be a crescendo. No Anakin playing with those… animals. Stupid. Plus, when they are both on the balcony over the Lago di Garda they don’t really kiss. Padmé turns her head before they can do it. Again, a crescendo. We don’t need it now.

Removed 3P0 on Tatooine

Placed the Dooku and Padmé deleted scene just after Anakin and Padmé land on Geonosis. They enter that dark corridor, and when the geonosians appear, I change sequence just before Anakin starts attacking them. At the end the Geonosian leader simply says “Take them to the arena”. No droid factory.

Senate sequence. No Jar Jar proposing to give Palpatine more powers. When Windu enters, we already hear senators cheering for Palpatine. Plus, I added the Rebel briefing music from ROTJ, to hint that the Republic and Palpatine are the good guys right now, and that the creation of the Clone army is supposed to be seen as a good thing.

Trimmed Anakin and Padmé before entering the arena. Padmé still says that she’s been dying since he returned, and that she loves him (not deeply or truly though). Then Anakin replies that he thought they decided not to fall in love. And stop. No other words. I placed shots of them simply staring at each other, and then kissing. We don’t need many words. I added a music track. I think it makes the scene sooooo much powerful…

Trimmed final duel. Less talk. And there is no ridiculous Anakin and Dooku playing helicopters. While they are still fighting, Yoda enters. Then, when Dooku cuts Anakin’s arm, Yoda calls him. Dooku turns, he sees Yoda, then he turns back and he uses the Force to crush that column. Yoda saves Anakin and Obi-Wan. No lightsaber, but he is still useful.

Trimmed AtoC ending. Added the “Your father would have been proud of you” music from Rogue One. Windu asks Obi Wan where Anakin is, and we cut to Alderaan and Anakin/Padmé marrying. That music is so powerful, it both shows that this should be a positive moment, but it’s also dangerous. It’s the turning point in Anakin’s life. I also added the Imperial Suite during the Clone Army presentation.

CONCLUSION

I’m not going to be editing all of this immediately, as I am very busy at the moment and I have school. I don’t know when I’m going to be making my edit, but for now these are just ideas. Anyway, let me know your thoughts on my ideas for the edit in the comments below! And I’m open to suggestions, too! 😃

Just to let you guys know, I will start working on this edit after I release the rough cut of my upcoming edit for The Last Jedi on December 25, 2019. If you have any suggestions for this edit, let me know! 😃